Policies for Discussion
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Increase Local Community Control
Local police district residents, in collaboration with community police officers, should have more say in determining local policing priorities. For example, gang activity may be a bigger issue in one district than another. The prioritization of different crimes, as well as of the communication of crime statistics to the public, might vary from district to district, depending in part on local concerns. Over-standardization can lead community members to feel that their concerns are not being taken seriously.
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​Real Community Policing
We must build on promising, early-stage programs such as the Chicago Neighborhood Initiative to promote public safety through a serious collaboration between community residents and the police. In this system, District Coordinating Officers cultivate relations with knowledgeable residents, violence interruptors, and various professionals, to be on the lookout for crimes in the making and to deescalate dangerous situations. Such a new system requires the willingness to experiment and patience.
Trim Bureaucracy
The result of layer upon layer of police oversight has led to what I call piling on protocols. We do not improve policing by micromanaging what they do, programming them to follow countless instructions, and requiring them to fill out endless paperwork. It is better to hold them to core responsibilities, such as showing all members of the public respect, deescalating dangerous situations whenever possible, protecting innocent victims, tracking down dangerous offenders, and reporting honestly and thoroughly. Increased responsibility has been shown to improve performance.
Moral Responsibility
Police training as it stands now — as outlined in the Consent Decree — comes across more as programming robots than it does as cultivating responsible professionals to promote safety and the public good. Policing often requires officers to face moral dilemmas, such as balancing the humane treatment of troubled but dangerous individuals vs. protecting the safety of innocent bystanders. An important part of police training should include skillfully led discussions of moral dilemmas, of which there are no clear, standardized answers.
More Fair, More Constructive Performance Review
Performance reviews should be undertaken by what the British call visitors: respected, experienced officers from other jurisdictions besides the Chicago Police Department. There needs to be a more aggressive public feedback system. Any time a local resident has interaction with the police, they should be interviewed for feedback. At regular intervals, the “visitors” should review with officers such feedback, as well as feedback from their superiors. We should draw on, but not be over-reliant on, both quantitative data and the views of superiors, who have their own reputations to protect.
Prevent the Needless Criminalization of Troubled Individuals and At-risk Youth
​All police recruits should receive training to become knowledgeable about city services available to troubled or at-risk individuals and families. The Consent Decree requires patrol officers to refer people to those services whenever they can. They need to be more knowledgeable than they are now about making referrals, but that is not enough. We also ought to have at least one full-time non-sworn case manager in every police district, whose job it is to be expert on available services. All patrol officers should have a direct line to such a case manager, without having to go through a chain of command.
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